Thursday, September 20, 2018

Women's equality -- yes, it's political -- Sept. 20, 2018 column

Asked when there will be enough women on the Supreme
Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a ready answer.

“When there are nine,” she says. “People are shocked.
But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”

Ginsburg’s provocative response came to mind during
the debacle surrounding President Donald Trump’s selection of Brett Kavanaugh
for the nation’s highest court. Trump could have nominated a woman.

After all, President Ronald Reagan nominated the first
woman justice – Sandra Day O’Connor.

We’re nowhere near Ginsburg’s goal. Only three of the
nine are women – Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Not that choosing a woman to replace Justice Anthony
Kennedy would have guaranteed smooth sailing. It’s easy to imagine Trump
choosing the wrong woman just as President George W. Bush did in 2005.

Bush crashed on the rocks of public opinion with his
ill-conceived choice of White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace O’Connor. Miers,
who had no judicial experience, was such an unsuitable pick she withdrew before
her confirmation hearing.

Bush then chose federal
appellate judge Samuel Alito, who is one of the most conservative justices.

Americans consistently tell pollsters they’d like to
see more women leaders in both politics and business.

Majorities of Americans say having more women in top
positions in government and business would improve the quality of life for everyone,
for men and for women, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey released
Thursday.

But there’s a gender gap. Seven in 10 women say there
should be more women in high political office and in top business jobs, but only
about half of men say so.

And – no surprise -- Democrats and Republicans see the
state of women’s equality very differently. Nearly eight in 10 Democrats and Democratically-leaning
independents say too few women hold high political office, but only one in
three Republicans and Republican-leaners think so.

With the most women running for Congress ever, the looming
question for the midterms is whether voters will make this truly a Year of the
Woman.

The dismal approval rating of the
Republican-controlled Congress – still bumping the bottom at 19 percent in the
latest Gallup poll – suggests a desire for change.

Only 31 percent of Republicans approve of the way
Congress handles its job, but that’s far higher than the 8 percent of Democrats
who approve. Among independents, 17 percent approve of the job Congress is
doing.

The current Congress has a record 112 women – 89 in
the House and 23 in the Senate – but that’s only 21 percent of the total. Most
the women are Democrats – 64 in the House and 17 in the Senate.

For a sense of how long
it’s taken women to get this far, 52 women have ever served in the Senate and
23 are serving now.

Of the 53 women who filed to run for the U.S. Senate
this year, 23 made it through their primaries and are still in the running. In
the House, 239 of the 476 women who filed are still in the running, according
to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Several Democratic women in the House are forming Elect
Democratic Women, a PAC inspired by the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional
Hispanic Caucus, that plans to raise money for female Democratic candidates.

“We really feel very strongly that better decisions
will be made by government when it represents the diverse population it is
supposed to represent,” Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Florida, chairwoman of the group,
told Politico.

Winning for Women PAC, whose leaders include former Sen.
Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, formed last year to endorse conservative
candidates and serve as a counterweight to EMILY’s List, the powerful
Democratic group that endorses abortion rights candidates.

The competing PACs are emerging as women worry women
candidates may be losing ground. Women are more doubtful now than they were four
years ago that voters are ready to elect women, Pew found.

In 2014, about 41 percent of women thought the main
reason women were underrepresented in high political offices was voters weren’t
ready to elect women. Now, after Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, 57 percent of
women say they think voters aren’t ready.